max the main skill plus life buffs (since ur def will be zero ur gonna want a full bulb)leaves you with 40 pts you could either mastery or synergies. i dont think you would get crit bonus with zerk but the ar and dmg, not sure what would boost your damage more tho.

_________________“Education has failed in a very serious way to convey the most important lesson science can teach: skepticism”

my take on barbs is to focus on the masteries rather than the combat skills as your primary source of damage is going to be your weapon choice and not your high level skills. The damage on your weapon will most often multiply out with a much bigger impact than the off weapon %Enhanced Damage that comes from skills.

_________________People who live in cinder block houses can throw whatever they want.

The great thing about berserk barb is the bipolar versatility. Conc is a SYNERGY. Therefor allowing me to use it whenever needed. IM? NOT A PROBLEM blast out the berserk! Getting mobbed by...mobs?(duh) Throw out conc for the major def boost. I can switch whenever I want. The thing is will NOT maxing Bo/Stam REALLY hurt? Maybe stopping at like 15 hard maybe a little less like 12-13.

The lions share of damage comes from the weapon, NOT the skill level and synergies. They add a little damage but not much. Strength adds more damage than melee synergies mostly. You can leave melee skills 1 pointed all through norm and nm and just depend on weapons for damage.

It's a bad idea to skip over the best passive lifebuff in the game (stamina) and battle orders as a whole. BO is your party buff skill, you can't not max that unless you are a hermit.

bo and stamina maxed first, always. zerk as your main skill max it, mastery is a good choice as well and thats 80. sometimes ppl max shout/iron skin but with 0 def not sure if thats the route to go?i met a druid waiting to do meph yesterday who when i asked what lvl his oak was, he said whats that

_________________“Education has failed in a very serious way to convey the most important lesson science can teach: skepticism”

1- Good mdr/pdr. These are musts. No matter how much defense you get, it won't matter as you'll definitely drain it. But zerk never drains pdr and you'll need a good amount of it. 2- Good weapon damage as mentioned.3- A good deal of HP isn't bad either.

So, my suggestions are:Safety craft - Utilize this as much as possible. You'll need as many pdr/mdr as possible. Especially rings, safety rings give a lot of vitality bonus. Safety weapon gives a good deal of damage bonus as well.Iron Skin - By the same reason on pdr, you should sink every single remaining skill point into iron skin after maxing out on orders-stamina-berserk-mastery.Redemption Aura - A Holy crafted weapon gives 6-8 level of it. You won't be able to benefit from life/mana steal but you'll kill shit so fast. Redemption greatly synergies with Berserk. Not to mention that a holy crafted weapon has a very good damage boost and magic damage.

Well, that's it.. Kinda.. At least i got nothing more to say.

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blue_myriddn wrote:

mrporter wrote:

They want unearned riches and unearned respect...not the deep feeling of self-worth that comes from actually earning what you have.

@Rebel My suggestions are one Safety crafted weapon for increased damage and mdr/pdr and one Holy crafted weapon for increased damage and redemption aura. Berserk deals magic damage and thus you can't life/mana steal. But berserk kills shit so fast and redemption lets you regenerate from corpses. You can socket your weapons with mal runes and amets for - magic resistance and ias respectively (I think in blue's site, -8% to magic magic resistance is actually -%8 to enemy magic resistance for mal rune).

For weapon type, my suggestion will be generic two handed swords, crafted and socketed colossal swords to be more specific. Colossal swords have the best offering on damage and base as. Of course you need some more detailed speed calculation for berserk. Here, you can find some site that can help you (warning: i don't know the exact mechanics of berserk, but ias on second weapon has no effect on your actual speed with zerk according to here):

1- MDR/PDR: Berserk drains your defense like no other. No amount of defense will do good in a berserk build. MDR is not nearly as compulsory as PDR as berserk doesn't drain resistances unlike defense.

2- As your defense goes down like no other and you can't steal life/mana because you do magic damage; you HAVE TO get an alternate way of regenerating life and mana because berserk drains a good amount of mana as well. In my suggested build, that alternate way is level 8 redemption aura.

3- Magic resistant/immune monsters/bosses: You also need a way to decrease magic resistance somehow for these. If I'm thinking correctly on mal runes, they are an option. Having someone to lower resist is also an option, or having oskill lower resist-lower resist charges as well. But, lower resist will be a burden to your gear choice. Your best bet will be something that decreases enemy magic resistance as you hit.

4- Balance between damage-dr: Depending on your preferences, you can either load some additional strength with blood crafted amulets/rings which means less mdr/pdr with possible safety crafted counterparts; or using safety crafted amulet/rings in the place of blood crafted counterparts for additional mdr/pdr. Also deciding to socket armors/helms with amets or diamonds also effects this balance as amets give str bonus whereas diamonds give additional mdr/pdr. You have to get the right balance as loaded str will make you a glass cannon and loaded damage reduction will get you nowhere as your zerk barb will deal less damage than supposed. Also, one more point on this, you WON'T get the percentage of the damage you deal with redemption. I don't know how redemption works but i know how it doesn't work. But, you have to kill shit, so that redemption works.

What makes zerk barbs one of the strongest melee builds is the last patch that nerfed gimmicky melee builds like zeal-cb or frenzy-dswing-cb and buffed melee raw damage with buff on strength stat.

-------------------------------------

Also, if you're going for crushing blow or something like that, DON'T EVER go for a zerk barb. Frenzy-D swing barb is a much better option as D swing has an unmatched attack speed after maxed frenzy. Frenzy-D swing attacks 3 times more than zerk in the same amount of time.

_________________

blue_myriddn wrote:

mrporter wrote:

They want unearned riches and unearned respect...not the deep feeling of self-worth that comes from actually earning what you have.

3- Magic resistant/immune monsters/bosses: You also need a way to decrease magic resistance somehow for these. If I'm thinking correctly on mal runes, they are an option. Having someone to lower resist is also an option, or having oskill lower resist-lower resist charges as well. But, lower resist will be a burden to your gear choice. Your best bet will be something that decreases enemy magic resistance as you hit.

lower res curse won't lower magic resistance. It was suggested but after testing, it was deemed way to powerful.

i currently have a conc//zerk barb, lvl 82 does 18k zerk with only 10 or so pnts in conc and 1 in zerk. My wep only does 670~ max dmg, zerk will hit huge huge numbers once you get a big wep. (max spear mastery//bo/ stam atm)

i currently have a conc//zerk barb, lvl 82 does 18k zerk with only 10 or so pnts in conc and 1 in zerk. My wep only does 670~ max dmg, zerk will hit huge huge numbers once you get a big wep. (max spear mastery//bo/ stam atm)

Ya - I think that some melee characters will pull down some huge numbers if they focus on dmg at the expense of tank role

_________________People who live in cinder block houses can throw whatever they want.

i currently have a conc//zerk barb, lvl 82 does 18k zerk with only 10 or so pnts in conc and 1 in zerk. My wep only does 670~ max dmg, zerk will hit huge huge numbers once you get a big wep. (max spear mastery//bo/ stam atm)

Ya - I think that some melee characters will pull down some huge numbers if they focus on dmg at the expense of tank role

The numbers dont matter for the bosses that matter, that is, hell act bosses, who have starting at andy 125% phys resistance, and going up..

atm melee is USELESS.

_________________

blue_myriddn wrote:

This patch is probably the best balance HU has seen in a long time.

Abominae wrote:

@BlueHmmm.... Sometimes I believe your logic is on another fucked up plane of existence.

of course you can have a healer healing but,,, WHY NOT JUST BRING METEOR SORC and use concentrate.

The same andy with 125% physical resistance can't do shit to a zerk barb who has a good pdr and resistances. But, like you say: Meteor Sorc is a lot more useful against the same andy with -50% fire res.

And, melee is not a useless trash. Making a caster is just much more useful compared to making a melee because casters are a lot more ezpz in comparison.

Rasta wrote:

Steel wrote:

Is maxing battle cry a good idea? -%dmg should help with taking hits, ye? Or it's just 1 point skill?

1 pnt battle cry is enough, you cant stun the relevant monsters anyway so stunning trash for 2 more seconds with 10 more pnts is bad.

I haev 1 pnt into cry, stun lasts 3.2 seconds, thats fine for me cuz then i just cast it again.

Battle cry is nothing useful for increasing zerk damage. Much more useful on decreasing enemy damage, but i know nothing about its feasibility. I think it works on most of those relevant monsters like most of those curses. But 1 point gives -25% damage reduction and 20 point gives -44%. So I don't think maxing out on battle cry is a good idea for a zerk barb. Significant increase on duration means nothing anyway. You can cast it repeatedly. +1 Taunt is good as well, it means that your merc won't die to stupid trash. Especially when you're using an iron wolf, which is a caster but always stays close for some reason. Taunt doesn't work on relevant things i think.

_________________

blue_myriddn wrote:

mrporter wrote:

They want unearned riches and unearned respect...not the deep feeling of self-worth that comes from actually earning what you have.

Well i havent remade yet but i'm glad this topic is still going... I might save like 2-4 points off both bo and stam for the extra Synergy dmg... I dont know how conc will fair in situations where i need it with just one pt so maybe 5 will be nice. While i start sinking pts in Iron skin end game.

Question: Does decrep actually increase magic dmg? I have a law bringer i wouldnt mind having on switch since i dot really use it anymore. Too poor to make anything else useful.

I think making my biggest probel will be pdr/mdr. I never knew it was so viable before. Blood craft helms with diamonds in there might really help for this barb as well.

Q2: Is there an Elite Circlet? I tried moonstone craft with Tiara and Coronet with no dice. I'm not new to crafting, but am new to crafting circlets.

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